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The Golden Age The Golden Age 44 FROM KRAKOW TO KRYPTON: JEWS AND COMIC BOOKS of comics is so called because this was when the language of comic books was formed, when they first started to differentiate themselves—in style and content—from newspaper strips. From roughly 1938 to 1952, writers, cartoonists, and editors experimented with the very idea of how page layout, camera angles, characterization, storytelling, and iconography could most effectively be employed in comic-book pages. It was also when the genres most associated with comic books first took hold: humor, adventure, romance, western, science fiction, horror, fantasy, and, of course, superhero. The first wave of superheroes—stalwarts such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, Captain America, the Sub-Mariner, the Flash, the Green Lantern, and so many others—were created during this era. Since comic books are more closely associated with superheroes than with any other genre— indeed, today they constitute a good 80 percent of the industry’s content—there is good reason why the era in which superheroes first flowered is known as the Golden Age. Many comics pros active during the Golden Age don’t take the term seriously, however, especially since historians differ as to what year the Golden Age began. Some say 1933, others 1938, and still others might argue 1935. As Stan Lee quips, “I have no idea when the Golden Age was [supposed to have been], but as far as I’m concerned, wherever I am is the Golden Age!” And Will Eisner noted with a laugh, “Today you call it the Golden Age. Well, for those of us that were in the Golden Age, we didn’t know it was the Golden Age! It was the Leaden Age as far as we were concerned!” The LEaden Age Chapter seven By 1983, the Superman co-creator Joe Shuster was legally blind and this may have been his last drawing of Superman. Eisner’s comment underscores a bitter irony to the era. Many of these superheroes’ creators began working in comics when they were penniless kids who had no idea that the characters they created would take off in such a major way. They couldn’t afford lawyers, often didn’t know they were being exploited, and didn’t think twice when told that the work they were doing was “work for hire.” Therefore, they never received proper financial compensation for their efforts. With few exceptions, they were underpaid wage slaves entitled to no rights and no royalties. There are simple reasons for this; the publishers, desperate to fill pages of their new “comic magazines,” sought cheap labor, and these desperate, young (and frequently Jewish) kids naively signed away all rights to their work to their publishers. Unlike today’s comics pros, they often didn’t give a thought to ideas like royalties or residuals, and they didn’t care so much about bylines or personal appearances, let alone getting a slice of ancillary merchandise. This is the irony, then, of referring to an era of cheap labor and exploitation as the Golden Age. Even Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were cheated out of the fortunes they surely deserved for creating Superman, the world’s first superhero. Harry Donenfeld made a fortune on the backs of Siegel and Shuster, who sold the first 13-page Superman story for a mere $130, retaining no royalties or ownership of the character. The duo had to negotiate for possible financial and creative participation in the subsequent Superman comic strip and other spin-offs, while the juicy licensing fees were socked away in Donenfeld’s corporation, Superman, Inc. From 1940–41 alone, Superman merchandise brought in approximately $1.5 million, worth at least three to four times that in today’s dollars. This is not to say that Siegel and Shuster were exactly down and out at this point. In fact, for comic-book professionals, they were doing marvelously well. When they sold their original 13-page Superman story to DC for $130 (which they split equally) and the character became a hit, Siegel protested what he felt was their exploitation. Donenfeld eventually agreed to let Superman’s creators work on the newspaper strip for a share of the net (somewhere from 50 to 90 THE GOLDEN AGE: THE LEADEN AGE 45 An issue of 1930s pulp magazine The Shadow, featuring a character who was almost more frightening than the evil-doers he hunted. The Shadow was a huge influence on Bob Kane’s...

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